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Trying to style Henry Pollock into a rugby icon is missing something
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If this is where rugby is going, it might be a journey it takes without me.
Rugby, to me, is the ultimate team game. Tall or short, big or small, there’s always been a place for you.
It’s not about individuals, but the collective. If you’re modest, hardworking and brave you’ll earn the respect of everyone.
No-one’s bigger than the team, no-one says or does stupid things that put a target on people’s heads. You talk a small game, but play a big one.
I wouldn’t normally stoop to writing about Henry Pollock. The Northampton flanker isn’t worth my time or anyone else’s.
He’s a useful player, who’s now getting his tyres pumped up by a boxing promoter.
Pollock’s not fit to lace Richie McCaw’s boots, who is the epitome of everything we used to want and value in a rugby player.
But, frankly, I was appalled when I saw Pollock described this week as “the new Taylor Swift of his generation.’’
I don’t want to shock anyone but, beyond having heard the name and probably being able to identify Swift in a police line-up, I know nothing and care nothing about her. If she has an audience, I’m not part of it.
New Zealand rugby players have stuck their head above the parapet occasionally and, when they do, I cringe. TJ Perenara, Rieko Ioane and Ardie Savea would be three I immediately think of off the top of my head.
Just play the game, champ, and don’t make a spectacle of yourself.
But that’s not where we’re going here. No, despite the lack of substance, we’re going to try and style Pollock into becoming a rugby icon.
Jonah Lomu was pretty big in my day. Jonny Wilkinson too, particularly in England. I doubt too many kiwi kids had posters of him on the wall.
The thing is, those men generated attention and adulation beyond their teams because of the scale of their performances. They were match winners who became marketable on the back of their deeds.
If this hubbub around Pollock is anything to go by, we’re now looking to promote people into relevance regardless of whether they’ve ever done anything.
I accept that rugby has challenges. No, that’s not quite right. Rugby has one challenge: it pays players far too much and is therefore on an eternal search for more eyeballs and more cash in an attempt to break even.
Not to make money, mind. Just to keep from going bust.
The Lomu thing was a bit of a conundrum for New Zealand 30 years ago. Generations of All Black fans had grown up on men such as Colin Meads, Don Clarke and Sean Fitzpatrick and, while they were universally admired and respected, you wouldn’t call them celebrities.
Lomu was different. His talent and impact upon matches was so outsized that allowances were made for him within the team environment and the public simply couldn’t get enough of him.
He transcended the collective in a way that a host of genuinely great All Blacks didn’t before or since.
Daniel Carter has tried to make a public figure of himself in retirement, but he was always one of the boys in his playing days.
The fabric of rugby matters to me. I shake my head when I’m told we’re in the entertainment business now and that we have to connect with younger folk through social media channels rather than performances on the paddock.
I’ve also chafed against the idea that the All Blacks are a brand and not a team.
But for all the faults in that thinking and the fact it puts the cart before the horse, it’s still about the collective.
This Pollock stuff is about Pollock. It’s not about Northampton or England. It’s not even about rugby.
It’s about a promoter deciding, seemingly on a whim, that this is a person of substance that we’re going to be told is transformational so many times that we eventually believe it.
Hell, I’m disappointed in myself for giving the whole charade oxygen. But I do so because it should be said that this is not what rugby’s ever been about or ever should be.
Teams and players have always been held in high esteem because of their performances, not their haircuts. Yes, the game has to try and pay for itself but not by conning the public.
For all the fleeting fans you attract for five minutes, just as many of your traditional audience turn away in disgust.
Players have come and gone in my lifetime, but my love of the game never has. That’s in large part because no-one’s ever bigger than it.
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